For The Record #185 - Interview with Kevin Coogan

FTR #185 In this interview, author Kevin Coogan discusses key elements of his landmark text Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Autonomedia, copyright 1999.) Familiar to veteran listeners as author of the seminal article about the SMOM (Knights of Malta) entitled "The Men Behind the New Counter-Reformation," and as the co-author of several fine articles with Martin A. Lee, Coogan has written an exhaustive account of the influential, but little known fascist theoretician for whom his book is titled. Beyond that, he has used Yockey's fascinating (and elusive) life as a vehicle for illustrating the structure and ideology of post-war international fascism.

After discussing Yockey's influence on the Liberty Lobby's Willis Carto, Coogan encapsulates the influence of German authors Oswald Spengler and Carl Schmitt on the development of Yockey's thought. The German Conservative Revolution and the geopolitics of theoretician Karl Haushofer also exerted profound influence on the development of Yockey's outlook.

Raised in Chicago, Yockey networked with Windy City fascist activist Newton Jenkins and people associated with the German-American Bund (a German American pro-Nazi group) and Father Coughlin (a popular radio fascist.) Yockey may also have been connected to the apparatus of a Nazi sabotage operation (code-named Pastorius) through his association with a Nazi activist named Herbert Haupt. Coogan details Yockey ' s association with another Third Reich agent named Harold Keith Thompson.

A probable agent for the SD (the intelligence service of the SS), Thompson was a skilled forger, who served as the PR agent for Marguerite Oswald (Lee's mother). The first half of the interview concludes with examination of Coogan's hypothetical construct called The Order. This organization constitutes an underground, post-war SS-associated group, functioning as a sort of directorate and intelligence service for an "underground Reich". In the second half of the interview, Coogan sets forth some of Yockey's post-war connections, illustrative of the networks of which he was a part. Former Goebbels Propaganda Ministry official Johann Von Leers published a Nazi periodical entitled Der Weg, which lauded Yockey. Yockey also worked with the organization of Werner Naumann, another Goebbels subordinate, who was very active in the post-war Nazi milieu in Germany.

After describing Naumann's network, Coogan describes the occult views of fascist philosopher Julius Evola, another influence upon and admirer of Yockey. (Coogan theorizes that Evola's work with the SD may have been instrumental in giving birth to the hypothetical "Order.") Both Yockey and Evola envisioned a type of "spiritual fascism," as opposed to the "blood" or Volkisch ideology of "racial fascists". Like Evola, Yockey also embraced certain aspects of occultism as part of his fascist philosophy. Abbreviated in this description, the elements of Coogan's analysis are intricate and detailed, as is his book. Mr. Emory emphatically endorses this volume. (Recorded on 12/5/99.)